This question is not restricted to online communities like lemmy, the scope also encompasses communities like small villages, interest groups (i.e. for hobbies) and political parties.
This question is not restricted to online communities like lemmy, the scope also encompasses communities like small villages, interest groups (i.e. for hobbies) and political parties.
It’s a constant fight. I grew up in a village. In the 1980s the neighboring city wanted to annex it. The villagers fought against it for about 25 years. Eventually the neighboring city had a vote. All the citizens of that city were able to vote on whether to annex the village. The city ran a campaign saying how good it would be for the people in the village. Obviously the annexing happened because the villagers couldn’t fight it.
That’s just one example, but it applies to every small, non centralized entity. If a government or a large corporation wants to take it over, it can and will. The one thing digital entities have over other things is space. If someone does take over Lemmy, for example, then the people of Lemmy have the ability to move somewhere else in digital space, unlike the villagers who didn’t all possess the ability to leave their land.